St Vincent’s 3-11
Portlaoise 0-10
ALL-IRELAND CHAMPIONS St Vincent’s maintained their winning championship run as their superior cutting edge ensured they accounted for a gutsy Portlaoise at O’Moore Park.
St Vincent’s had a lightening start and led by five points after five minutes. Diarmuid Connolly was being marked by Cahir Healy but the Laois star could not get to grips with his Dublin opponent at all early on.
Connolly was involved in all three opening scores and when he put Tomás Quinn through for the simplest of goals, it was 1-2 to 0-0.
Portlaoise looked in real trouble at this juncture and Vincent’s spurned a couple of more good opportunities to goal through over-elaboration.
Tommy Conroy brought Zach Tuohy further out though, while Craig Rogers also began drifting and Portlaoise gradually earned a foothold. That had the dual effect of setting up more opportunities for the likes of the dangerous Paul Cahillane, while also stemming the flow in Connolly’s direction.
Cahillane scored three points and Tuohy an absolute peach after two dummy solos and at half time, Vincent’s led by just a point, 1-4 to 0-6.
They resumed in almost identical fashion to how they started though and a 33rd-minute goal from the excellent Carthy settled them down once more.
The polished attacker bagged his second goal nine minutes later to extinguish the home team’s aspirations, finishing to an empty net after Mickey Nolan failed to get a strong enough fist to Connolly’s free.
It was plain sailing from there to the end, with Portlaoise never threatening even one of the goals they desperately needed to give themselves a chance of overturning the deficit.
Scorers for St Vincent’s: S Carthy 2-2; T Quinn 1-3 (0-2fs); D Connolly (1f), R Treanor, Cormac Diamond 0-2 each
Scorers for Portlaoise: P Cahillane 0-6(4fs); C Rogers 0-2(1f); Z Tuohy, B McCormack 0-1 each
ST VINCENT’S: M Savage, K Bonnie, J Curley, H Gill, B Egan, G Brennan, M Conarr, E Fennell, D Murphy, G Burke, D Connolly, S Carthy, R Treanor, C Dorney, T Quinn.
Subs: Cameron Diamond for Murphy (43), Cormac Diamond for Dorney (47), T Diamond for Burke (55).
PORTLAOISE: M Nolan, P Cotter, B Mulligan, D Seale, E Whelan, C Healy, C Boyle, K Lillis, S Nerney, G Dillon, B McCormack, B Glynn, P Cahillane, Z Tuohy, C Rogers.
Subs: A Kelly for Nerney (35), E Feane for Boyle (35), M McNulty for Whelan (42), M Rogers for Lillis BC (49), G Brody for Dillon (55).
REFEREE: A Nolan (Wicklow)
– First published 16.14